Some of the hymns for Palm Sunday choose themselves. I can’t imagine not singing All glory, laud and honour during the procession into church after the blessing of palms. If we hadn’t had a choir piece at the preparation of the gifts, I’m sure we’d have had Ride on, ride on in majesty. And our recessional hymn every year is My song is love unknown. The words, written by Samuel Crossman in 1664, vividly recount the Passion narrative, and coupled with John Ireland’s beautiful melody, it’s one of my favourite hymns. As the verses unfold, we move from addressing our Lord as Saviour, Prince and King, to the simple claim: this is my friend. For me, the phrase brings the events of Holy Week into inescapable close-up.

Our brightest musical gem today was the haunting opening movement of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, sung beautifully by the women of the choir. I wonder what masterpieces the composer might have created, if he had lived beyond the age of twenty-six?

An odd fact about some of the best known Tudor anthems in English is that their authorship is unknown. In our music library, both This is the day and Rejoice in the Lord alway are filed under “Anon, 16th c.”. Lord, for thy tender mercy’s sake, which is filed under the name of John Hilton the elder, probably ought to be in the same category. It is usually attributed either to Hilton or to Richard Farrant, but as far as I can tell both attributions first appear at least a hundred years after the piece was written, and there’s no good reason to believe either.

Whoever the composer, this well-known and much-loved setting of a text from Prayers commonly called Lydley’s prayers published in 1568 is a simple and heartfelt prayer for help in meeting today’s Gospel message of forgiveness and repentance.

Special mention today for Anthony our magnificent organist, who had eye surgery a few days ago and yet played faultlessly—and mainly from memory!—this morning.

We were joined today by Revd Canon Gilly Myers, Canon Precentor at Manchester Cathedral. She gave a short address after Communion, talking about her work, and about her hopes for her church and for the future of ecumenical relations. By coincidence the choir sang a piece by Robert Creighton, who was a remarkably long-lived Canon Precentor of Wells Cathedral. His setting of the prodigal son’s penitent words provided a simple but direct vehicle for the text, in the form of a three-part canon (at varying intervals) between soprano, alto and bass, plus the tenor part supplying missing harmonies. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography almost glows with praise (but doesn’t quite manage it): As a composer of church music he was not markedly inferior to many of his professional contemporaries.

For the Psalm we took Richard Proulx’s setting, and slimmed it down by removing the organ interludes, and the last verse (which doesn’t feature among those selected in the Lectionary for today). This transformed it effectively from a thoughtful and somewhat meandering processional piece (which has worked well for us during Communion) into a more tightly focused, and still musically interesting, responsorial Psalm setting.

The arrangement by the late Richard Proulx of the Lenten penitential hymn Attende Domine sets Latin and English versions of the refrain, interspersed with verses in English. The men of the choir sang the Latin refrain, and everyone responded with the English one; the women’s voices supplied the verses in between. It felt like it worked well: sometimes when the people aren’t given enough to do, they seem reluctant to join in at all; but the strong refrain in this piece made it feel as though the assembly was being given a proper and dignified role, even if it was a limited one.

Tchaikovsky’s Legend tells of the young Jesus being crowned with thorns grown from the roses lovingly tended in his garden. It fitted, after a fashion, with the parable of the fig tree in today’s Gospel reading. It’s the kind of piece the choir thrives on: ample scope for drama and pathos, in a musical setting that, with simplicity and directness, tells a story. I think we did it justice.

To judge from internet discussions, the hymn How great thou art arouses a certain amount of strong feeling over the theology implicit in the words sent him to die. I don’t think the words really amount to heterodoxy from a Catholic perspective. In any event, it was clear that it was a song much loved by our singing assembly. Lex orandi, lex credendi notwithstanding, an old friend of mine said to me recently: it doesn't always make sense to dissect hymn texts right down to the bare bones. Sometimes images and metaphors are just that.

The cast and crew of Coronation Street, and two hundred-odd fans of the programme, came to pay tribute to the life of Maggie Jones who played the inimitable Blanche Hunt. I’m afraid I’m not enough of a Corrie watcher to have recognised all the famous names who were there. (But I did once explain acoustic spectrograms to Anne Kirkbride on Songs of Praise.)

There was a rich and varied programme of hymns, songs, poems and reminiscences. The pick of the crop was William Roache’s tour d’horizon of Blanche’s best put-downs over the years, part of a heartfelt tribute to a character (Maggie, I mean, rather than Blanche) it’s clear they miss.

There were prayers and a blessing too, led by Fr Tony. The choir had a limited role to play, in leading the hymns and (I suspect our chief purpose) giving the celebrant someone to process in and out with. Our ample reward was to rub shoulders with the stars over refreshments afterwards.

Welcome

This is a record of musical activities at St John's Cathedral, Salford - what we've been doing and what's coming up, and some thoughts on the musical planning process. You can also find information about joining the choir, and about our choral scholarships program.